TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Pirate Bay: The RIAA Is Delusional and Must Be Stopped
- RIAA: The Pirate Bay is The Worst of The Worst
- Single Movie Download Could See Swedes Prosecuted
| Pirate Bay: The RIAA Is Delusional and Must Be Stopped Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:58 AM PST
— The Senior Executive Vice President of the RIAA (wow, what a long title), Mitch Glazier, has published a blog post on why TPB is “one of the worst of the worst”. The piece gives us ample information on just how delusional the recording industry really is, and shows why they must be stopped. In the very first sentence Glazier uses the phrase “copyright theft”. It’s an interesting concept – if anyone in history ever stole copyright, it must be the record industry. At least they tried, as in the Swedish TPB case where they sued over a record they did not have the copyright to. A small lesson to Mr Glazier: If someone steals something, you don’t have it anymore. If you copy it, both have it. This means: If someone steals your copyright (aka “copyright theft”) you don’t have the copyright anymore. I’m having a hard time to see that happening though, since copyright isn’t really physical. The jobs that you say are being stolen in the US are somewhat physical though. And if someone steals them where do they go? Maybe they just aren’t needed anymore! That’s what technology does! Sorry, it’s 2012 not 1912 – do you want to forbid robots as well, since they steal jobs? Let me quote the title of Peter Sunde’s latest piece in Wired: “It’s evolution, …”. If you search for it, you’ll find the rest of the title for that piece. It might be illegal for me to put that in print since a new censorship law was passed in Syria. Since you apparently think that US law should control people around the world, shouldn’t we follow laws in Syria as well? Yes, Glazier is upset that TPB moved away from a US-controlled domain name. He doesn’t seem to understand that there is a worldwide problem when one single country tries to take control over a global infrastructure. TPB has no connections to the US so why should the US be able to control it? It’s a very undemocratic procedure which obviously the RIAA is supportive of. Apparently “escaping US laws” means not being born in the US, not living there, not working there or not wanting to kiss your ass. And Mr. Glazier, talking about the countries in the EU that you have forced ISPs to block TPB (and other sites) is interesting, as the European Court has just decided that these types of censorship are just that – censorship, and should be treated as illegal. Could we see your view on the matter, as the RIAA is clearly supporting illegal censorship? The RIAA wants the tech industry to sit down and talk to them. Fuck that. You’re not in charge. If you want the help of the tech industry, ask for it. You’ll probably get it since most tech people are nice. You’re not in charge anymore and that’s probably why you’re pissed off. Plz stop calling yourself “the creative community”. You’re not a community, you’re a coalition of some of the richest companies in the world. And the only thing you seem to be creative with is your accounting procedures. The recording industry is like a kid screaming for candy. The problem is that the kid has diabetes. Source: Pirate Bay: The RIAA Is Delusional and Must Be Stopped
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| RIAA: The Pirate Bay is The Worst of The Worst Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:57 AM PST
This change hasn’t gone unnoticed by the RIAA, as Vice President Mitch Glazier just published a scathing reply. Describing The Pirate Bay as one of the worst offenders, the RIAA boss argues that the industry needs better tools to topple such ‘rogue’ websites. “Talk about Exhibit A for addressing rogue websites in a meaningful manner,” he writes. “A blatantly illegal file-sharing site, proud that it's an online bazaar of every conceivable U.S. copyrighted work, found criminally responsible by its own country's legal system and who has been ordered by courts in at least seven European countries to be blocked by ISPs, has publicly acknowledged changing its domain name to escape U.S. laws.” “It is motivated by its brazen philosophy of thumbing its nose at the basic rights of America's creators. It is, in a phrase, one of the worst of the worst.” The RIAA boss then seizes the opportunity to call on lawmakers to pull sites like The Pirate Bay offline before it does more damage to the entertainment industries. “It is one of the most clear and obvious examples of why meaningful tools are needed to target foreign rogue sites that steal American jobs. Responsible leaders in the tech community should come to the table with constructive ideas and work with us and others to address this blatant theft before more damage is done to our economy and the creative community.” Although the punchline above is expected from the music industry group, the response does raise an interesting point. Apparently the RIAA also realizes that domain seizures are completely useless as websites can simply switch to foreign domains. If that is the case, then why risk breaking the Internet by baking it into law? The Pirate Bay, meanwhile, is seriously offended by Glazier’s writing. They decided to respond with a rebuttal, describing the RIAA as a delusional outfit that has to be stopped. Source: RIAA: The Pirate Bay is The Worst of The Worst
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| Single Movie Download Could See Swedes Prosecuted Posted: 16 Feb 2012 11:52 AM PST
This status did not go unnoticed by the world’s leading entertainment companies. Their response for the past several years has been to lobby, threaten and otherwise coerce Sweden’s government into taking tougher action against file-sharing sites and file-sharers themselves, and not without result. In addition to raiding The Pirate Bay and sentencing its founders to jail, Swedish authorities have spent the last few years going after file-sharers who share many thousands of files at once. In theory these multiple infringements can result in a prison sentence, so on this basis the police are allowed to obtain file-sharers’ identities from ISPs. However, if the Swedish government has its way, in future downloading a single movie could be enough for the authorities and copyright holders to come knocking. The issue surrounds a proposed change in the law which would allow police and prosecutors to obtain the identity of individual, even though their alleged offense is only deemed serious enough to warrant a fine. Although the proposed changes to Sweden’s Electronic Communications Act (LEK) are ostensibly being proposed to target fine-punishable offenses such as child grooming or even bullying, their scope would encompass petty file-sharing too. “I would no longer need to make a preliminary assessment of the criminality of the offense I am investigating. If I have an IP address, can I request information about who is the subscriber, regardless of the seriousness of the offense,” says Henrik Rasmussen, a prosecutor specializing in copyright infringement. “Of course, a violation of copyright law has been committed even if you just download a movie from a source that is not lawful. The risk then of course is that even those people will be contacted by the police, be interrogated, prosecuted and convicted,” Rasmusson adds. While the proposed legislative change would not give police the power to search the homes of suspected file-sharers for these minor offenses, Rasmusson says there are other ways to get the evidence needed to prosecute. “We can also call people in for questioning and it has happened several times before that when people have to face certain facts they admit the offense. We might use that on a larger scale,” Rasmusson adds. Founder of the first Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, told TorrentFreak that the proposals demonstrate the Swedish government’s continued “lapdoggery” towards the United States. “This was point nine in a cable from the US Embassy regarding a checklist the US had given to the Swedish government to avoid trade sanctions from the United States. “It is also remarkable how far beyond ’1984′-level surveillance this takes us when combined with the Data Retention Directive. In that dystopic novel, if the government didn’t see you doing something bad at the moment you did it, you were safe. With this law and Data Retention, the government gets the ability to rewind and play back if they missed your dissenting actions the first time. “Our civil liberties are crumbling, and we’re venturing into very dangerous territory,” Falkvinge concludes. Patrik Hiselius, a lawyer at ISP Telia Sonera, told SvD that it is important to find a balance between law enforcement, privacy and cost, and that combating file-sharing through legislation is not the answer. “Put down the attempts to constantly find repressive means to the problem,” Hiselius advises, adding: “The way to curb file sharing is to provide better legal alternatives.” Source: Single Movie Download Could See Swedes Prosecuted
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The following is a guest post by The Pirate Bay’s ‘Winston’ in reply to an article published by RIAA boss 
Two weeks ago The Pirate Bay 
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